Abby is 5!

 Oh my word. Five just seems like such a big number. My baby is growing up! 

Abby is such an amazing kid. She is decisive, has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, and a vivid imagination. She's got a memory like her daddy (that is to say, very good.) She is always asking how to spell things, or math questions. She started preschool at Indian Pines Country Day School in January, and her social skills have blossomed. She's got friends coming out her ears and has picked a couple boys she is going to marry (currently she's set on Asher, the new kid.) She doesn't tell me a lot about what she does at school, but she does tell me things like who used the bathroom that day, and who was missing from class. She really wants to be an astronaut when she grows up and knows all the planets and several dwarf planets., and she loves going to the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, even though it's like 4 hours away from Auburn.

 She is starting to read! She can read several words, and loves to be read to as well. She loves cutting with scissors, but isn't a huge fan of coloring. Sometimes she likes to help me cook supper. She lives for show time. She likes wearing long sleeves and pants (no matter the weather), cuddling, soft blankets, and movie night. She is obsessed with cheetahs, and loves cats, but is not crazy about dogs. She requested a braid in her hair every day for like 8 months in a row this past year. She loves music and is very good at identifying which movie soundtrack we are listening to. I don't even know half the time! The girl has got a great ear.

She sleeps like a rock pretty much every night, which is astounding when you consider how she used to sleep 4 1/2 years ago. She falls asleep so quickly and wakes up a little before 7am usually, but she stays in her bed until her light turns on at 7. She likes sharing a room with Calliope. Their beds are pushed together right next to each other. Over this last year those two have come a long way and now they play together frequently. I love to see their love and connection grow. 

She really enjoyed her tumbling class she just finished, and is already asking to be signed up for soccer again. She likes playing with Calliope and coming up with games that have lots of complicated rules that are hard for her mom to understand. She likes enforcing house rules and helping Calliope to understand them. She is curious about her family tree, and frequently refers to Mason as "your son" when she talks to Mimi. She loves her family with a devotion that I hope she keeps her whole life. 

I could go on and on. I think she's so interesting and creative and ambitious. I love being her mother. But we must get to the point of this post: her birthday!

Abby was really looking forward to her birthday for the 364 days preceding it. She talked about it all the time and asked over and over again how long it would be until she turned five. She got a crazy viral rash called erythema multiform about two days before her big day, and it was painful and itchy and made her feet and hands painfully swollen. But she didn't let that dull her party spirit!

She woke up at 7 on the dot and decided she wanted to start the day by opening all of her presents! It was very fun to see her so excited.  

One of her presents was a Kiwi crate that had supplies to build a rocket launcher, a planet mobile, and a couple other crafts. She got right to work and had this launcher built in the blink of an eye. It was really fun to work on it with her. She loves building things!

One of my favorite things about Abby's birthday is that she likes to help me decorate her cakes. She constructed this graham cracker shelter for her little cheetah toys. And she picked chocolate cake, which was very exciting for yours truly.

Probably her favorite part of the day was that Mimi came! It was a treat to have her here celebrating with us. 

Braiding Mimi's hair at bedtime

Painting planets

Showing off her Neptune knowledge (see the moons?)

On a walk

Birthday interview!

It's so much fun watching her grow. We love our Abby!

It's been too long

Lots has happened since I last blogged. Perhaps the most exciting was that we walked in our graduation ceremonies! Such a surreal moment for me--I never expected to actually do that. It is a goal that has felt impossible for so much of the time. But we did it, and it was awesome. The Parkes Clan came up (and down) to celebrate with us and clap and cheer for us. We hosted a lunch back at our apartment where we ate sub sandwiches and some cupcakes that we made. We LOVED spending that time with all of them, they are so cool and fun!

Obligatory Graduation Selfie

Our commencement ceremony! I think I remember them saying there were over 8,000 graduates at this ceremony! Arthur C. Brooks gave a great speech for this, you can read it here: https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/arthur-c-brooks_more-love-less-contempt/

Enter to Learn, Go Forth to Serve

By the library

At Mason's convocation!!!

I'm in here somewhere.... (my convocation)

Michelle and Lane

Axe throwing that night with the fam! I had SO MUCH FUN with Maddie during this.

On a more somber note, Grandma Mingledorff passed away in March. I almost didn't go to the funeral (in GA), but after much coaxing from my siblings and a particularly emotional conversation with Mom, I decided to go. I am grateful that Mom didn't tell me I had to come, but that she offered her personal insights and allowed me to make my own decision. It was really, really hard being there, especially for the viewing, and I was a total basketcase pretty much the entire time, but now looking back on it, I am glad that I decided to go. Some of the highlights for me were: spending some time with Russell and having some good talks with him, seeing all of Dad's siblings together (they are SO FUNNY), seeing Grandma Johnson, the closing hymn that Grandma picked out for the funeral (may the good Lord bless and keep you), seeing the beauty of Georgia (including the Camellia tree outside Grandma's house), and of course, all the Dairy Queen I got to eat. Shell did a really great blog post about it all, and since she has so many great pictures I don't have, I'm just going to link her post here:

http://nateandmich.blogspot.com/2019/05/grandmas-funeral.html

 I found these clovers in Grandma's yard. They have hearts on them!

All of the girls (minus Jen) in the car on the way to visit Jenna!

We made it through finals last semester, and now we are in spring term! Campus is beautiful, the weather is fantastic most of the time (although it's supposed to rain like every day for the next ten days, and be back in the fifties...).

We are both enjoying our classes. Mason is taking a neuroscience class from my favorite professor ever, Dr. Rebekka Matheson, and he is killing it and learning a ton and teaching me pieces of what he learns and I am loving it! He is also in a service through learning class, and has to do some community service for 20 hours this term. He's continuing to work as a TA, which he is so passionate about, and finds to be very fulfilling. Hopefully he can get his senior thesis done this term and then he will be free as a bird!

I am in 2 Psych classes (309 and 310) and they are really challenging but I think I'm enjoying them. Probably the most stressful thing about these is that I'm in a ton of group projects, and that always stresses me out. But my groups are good! I'm also in an English class (well, really I think it's actually a history class,) and that one is a TON of work with about a million assignments, but it's been pretty interesting so far. We have a class blog! To see the things I've posted, you can search for the label, "Posted by Brianna P." Here's the link to the blog: https://rhetciv.blogspot.com/

Shauna and Doug and their kids came out here for a funeral, and we got the immense pleasure of watching Evan (their youngest) for most of a day. It was so fun, even though we don't have a ton of experience watching little kids. We played on the playground, fed ducks, swung in the hammock, and watched a bunch of Magic School Bus. Also, funny story: he had a little accident that was totally my fault, and after when me and him were both soaked he kept looking at our shower and saying something. I can only understand about 60% of what he says because he's so little, and so I thought he was saying he needed to take a shower. I asked him, "Does your mom make you shower after you have an accident?" To which he replied, "Yeeees," in his cute little Evan voice. So I turned it on, he told me to turn it off because it was too loud, to which I replied, "It's not as loud once you actually get it!" And then I popped him in for a minute, and he just kind of ran around in the tub. Then we dried him off, washed his clothes, and watched Magic School Bus.

I can't believe I haven't posted about this, but we decided we are going to Auburn University in the fall for Mason to get his PhD!!!! We are very excited, and very nervous, and pretty much every other emotion too. He has to be there by August 12. Time to look for an apartment!!!

Oh, also, I had a birthday in the past 2 months too. Mason is so fun on birthdays. He made me the cutest cake (yellow with chocolate frosting and a heart made of jumbo chocolate chips on top.) For presents, he got me a shower cap (which I've wanted FOREVER) and my very own harmonica! I haven't had a ton of time to practice, but I learned the Piano Man harmonica part, and happy birthday. I sent this video to Mom on our birthday:

Mason turns 25

Mason had a birthday yesterday! He was on campus from 8 am until about 5 pm, and part of that was taking his Quantum Mechanics test. Needless to say, it wasn't the craziest birthday. However, we did celebrate hardcore that night by getting some Domino's pizza and eating cake. It was fun giving him presents and all that too. :)

I asked him what he's learned over this past year of his life. He said he's learned how to do a lot of different things, like take the GRE and do computer programming stuff.

He is cute, and I'm glad he's my husband. I have seen him grow and change over this past year and now he's even more out of my league than he was when we got married. I love him so much and I am so grateful to be his wife.

Bri's Birthday, the big 2-3

I had a birthday recently, and it was so fun! It was my first time having a birthday as a married woman, and I absolutely loved it!

We started it by sleeping in a teeny bit, and then Mason put my presents on top of me while I was laying in bed to wake me up! It was quite a way to be awoken! (Well, I guess he woke me up for the second time. I woke up the first time because he had to wrap them using packing tape. HA.) He got me some new fancy sandals and a pill counter. Just what I always wanted! He picked the sandalias out all by himself with no help from me and they are just perfect! He also told me there was a surprise at the end of the day that I could look forward to. I thought about it all day!

So then we went on a nice walk to try out my new sandals. They  were wonderful. It was nice to walk around and see all the flowers that are in bloom! We went on other walks too and they were all fun.

 New Sandals!!!

 "Goiter Tree"

Then we came home from our work and were debating going on a run, but we ended up just playing on Google Earth for about an hour and a half. It was fun! We looked at things like Mt. Everest, places in New Zealand Mason has been to, the Great Wall of China ... You get the idea.

We also went on a beautiful drive through Provo Canyon. We went all the way to Heber, and then turned around. Mason and I usually have wonderful conversations when we go on car rides, and this one did not disappoint. (Also, that's the canyon we drove through the night of our very first kiss! Romance!) Then Mason surprised me by pulling in to DAIRY QUEEN! I love Dairy Queen, and the one in Provo is disgusting. It was a total surprise and I loved it! Mason is such a sweet heart! So we ate supper there and got medium blizzards. I ended up throwing my blizzard cup away with a little bit of melted blizzard still left in it, into our trash can before remembering there was no bag in there. And then Mason cleaned the trash can. What a guy!

Perhaps the most special present I got was that Mason took the day off from homework/studying. It did help that it was Saturday, too. Finals were coming up and he had tons to do, but he worked really hard all the other days so he could spend lots of time with me on my birthday and not be stressing about school. He is the greatest and I like him lots and lots.

Top it off with presents from my fantastic parents in law (THANK YOU!), and it seriously could not have been a better birthday. All in all, it was fabulous. I felt so loved and special. I look forward to enjoying many more with my sweetheart! Here's hoping 23 is the best year yet!